Happy Birthday Mom

January 18th would have been my beautiful Mom’s 80th birthday. Remembering through all the memories, both good and bad, there is one thing that remained the constant…..I knew deep in my soul that my Mom loved me and loves me still. Just as light pushes away the dark, the happy times are like a flood washing away the bad times. Many smiles, much laughter, and heirlooms of the heart a plenty. You see it is not the materialistic things that are the treasure, but rather the true treasure is the loving memories that you make with one another for they become the heirlooms of the heart and follow you wherever you go. Before I met and married my handsome hubby, my Mom and I loved to go to garage sales. Sometimes we’d walk to the ones near the house or we’d drive. We used to ride the city bus and go to the Walgreens when it was on S. Kansas Avenue and have old fashioned strawberry sodas. We worked on crochet projects together. We even cooked together. After my hubby and I were married, there were many times I would take my Mom to Lake Shawnee’s Botanical Garden. Oh how she loved it there. She and I enjoyed the beauty of the garden and the gentle breeze that would rustle the leaves of the trees. We would watch birds in flight, gazed at the butterflies as they fluttered, enjoyed how the laughing little brooks would splash and glisten in the sunlight. Oh how the fragrant aroma of the many flowers greeted us as we would walk past. Now there is a memorial tree in Mom’s honor there. I visit there as frequent as I can and I take photographs of Mom’s tree as I watch it growing, reaching toward Heaven. You can say that Mom’s love is still with me and always will because of the treasured memories that I hold dear in my heart. Happy Birthday Mom. I love you.

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When I was high school aged, there was one day that Mom asked me to remind her to buy postage stamps.

Mind you, she didn't say how to remind her ;-) sometimes I like to do light hearted silly things.....

This is what I did to help her remember... ;-)

I got five pieces of paper, five pieces of scotch tape, wrote on each paper "buy stamps" and taped the messages in five of the places she frequented in the house (her glass of iced tea, her ashtray, the bathroom mirror, and her dresser mirror, and I forgot where I placed the fifth note).

By this time I was in another part of the house from where she was. Across the distance I heard "You didn't have to be a smart allic about it." We both laughed but she did remember to buy stamps ;-).

One of the many side dishes Mom liked to make around the Holidays was creamed peas (peas in a cream sauce).

I used to make egg nog (with McCormick rum flavoring) and when I did, it usually yielded about 1 and 1/2 gallons worth.

One time, sitting down to the Christmas dinner that Mom prepared, I got me a serving of cream peas.... thought it was a bit odd to see brown speckles in the sauce... then I tasted it... it tasted like egg nog... I asked Mom if she mistakenly got into my egg nog. ;-)

Well, the cream peas were certainly different that year and Mom was more careful when reaching for the gallon of milk for the cream sauce when the Holidays rolled around again...

I believe that when we pass from this life into the next, our memories follow us. When we get to Heaven, though the sad memories are there with the happy memories.....there will be such joy and happiness that there will be no need to remember the sad memories.

When Mom's Alzheimer's/dementia was taking pieces away from her one piece at a time, I was making happy memories for the both of us.